Up to Two Inches More Snow Fell and Thanksgiving Weekend Looks AWESOME!!!

The news of the day has to be the Opening Day for Wolf Ridge Resort as they debut their version of the 2008-2009 ski season today with 3 trails. Wolf’s opening today leaves only Sapphire Valley in the southernmost part of North Carolina as the lone NC Ski area not operating just yet. This has been a great start to say the least. Sapphire Valley IS open for tubing today, but the ski ops are not planned to begin until December 19th.

Forecasters were off on the snow totals for Tuesday. Most predicted widespread 3-4" totals for most of the higher elevations of the NC Mountains. That never materialized as only a dusting hit most of the area – while the tops of Sugar and Beech Mountains saw another 2" of snow. That added two inches of snow now takes Beech and Sugar to nearly 17" of snow on the season and we’re just getting started! Remember that Beech only received 38" of natural snow ALL last season, so we’re nearly half way there and we’re only a week or so into things!

BASE DEPTHS SOAR…

Base depths have become a relative figure for most of us who keep an eye on things of that nature and we don’t put a lot of focus on them much anymore. However it should be noted that the reported base depths at ALL resorts are at mid-season levels! Anytime you’re seeing FIVE FOOT BASES being reported – YOU KNOW you’re in for a great day on the slopes!

The weather forecast has also been tweaked for the Western North Carolina mountains as we are now looking at a "chamber of commerce-like" Holiday weekend from today through Sunday with sunny, Carolina-blue skies and highs in the 30s and low 40s (perfect) and lows in the low to mid 20s (again – perfect!) Expect snowmaking whenever temps allow and some a-w-e-s-o-m-e conditions for your Holiday ski getaway.

We do, indeed, have a LOT to be thankful for!

Wolf Ridge fans should know that they WILL be open for today for day and night skiing. Then they will CLOSE for tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, and then reopen on Friday. Ditto for Cataloochee ski area.

As mentioned on Tuesday, Appalachian expects to be 100% open for this Thanksgiving Weekend for the first time in their history as they will be open with all 10 trails, both terrain parks and ice skating!

Sugar and Beech will be open for Thanksgiving Day as well. Beech is gunning to open to the top if not by Thursday, certainly by the weekend. Sugar is planning to open more terrain as well. They have 9 trails open now and plan to open the ice rink this weekend!

Mike is the Editor and founder of SkiSoutheast.com, SkiNC.com and ResortCams.com. Since September 1996 he has posted close to 14,000 posts, articles, photos and videos promoting all of the ski areas of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.Mike is the father of four daughters, is an avid skier and enjoys golf, tennis, kayaking and hiking in the mountains. Winter snowsports and Summer boating on Watauga Lake are among his favorite pastimes.

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